Mets la Main à la Pâte/ Yeasted And Filled Meringue Coffee Cake: Daring Baker’s Challenge, March 2011

For those of us who do not understand French, “Mets la Main à la Pâte” apparently translates as Yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake (I think), though Google Translate came up with “Put my hands dirty!” which didn’t sound very promising.

This month’s Daring Bakers challenge hosts, Jamie and Ria, are both very good friends and I know Jamie knows her French so I’ll trust her translation.

The March 2011 Daring Baker’s Challenge was hosted by Ria of Ria’s Collection and Jamie of Life’s a Feast. They challenged The Daring Bakers to bake a yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake.

Jamie** found this recipe on a piece of yellowed paper in her dad’s collection of clipped out and hand-written recipes from the 1970’s, no source, no date, and when she tried the recipe she fell in love with it.

Our hosts describe the the Mets la Main à la Pâte as a gorgeous brioche-like dough is rolled jellyroll style around a whipped meringue and whatever filling you choose, shaped into a wreath and baked. The coffee cake is light, fluffy, barely sweet, while the meringue melts into the dough as it bakes leaving behind just a hint of sweetness and adding to the perfect moistness of the cake.

The mandatory part of the challenge meant making the sweet yeast dough for the coffee cake and the meringue, but we were free to experiment with the fillings in the coffee cake.

Things have been hectic this month for me and the last thing I wanted was an adventure in baking so I really didn’t deviate much from the give recipe for a change. I just halved the recipe, and added some chai masala to my meringue for a spicy note to my coffee cake. For my filling, I used broken roasted cashewnuts, cranberries and semi-sweet chocolate chips.

I read the recipe in a bit of a hurry it seems, as I got the size of the rolled out dough wrong. Maths wasn’t one of strong points in school, but I cannot believe that I managed to get even simple arithmetic wrong! What this meant was that my rolled up dough wasn’t long enough for me to shape into a wreath, so I tucked the ends of my roll neatly and baked it as a log.

So it wasn’t a success on an aesthetic level, added to shich I seemed to be singularly stumped for styling ideas when it came to taking pictures of it! Let me assure you that the proof is definitely in the eating, and in that area it proved an unqualified success.

You can find the original recipe here

**Yeasted And Filled Meringue Coffee Cake.

(Adapted from Daring Baker Challenge, March 2011)

Mets la Main à la Pâte/ Yeasted And Filled Meringue Coffee Cake: Daring Baker’s Challenge, March 2011

For those of us who do not understand French, “Mets la Main à la Pâte” apparently translates as Yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake (I think), though Google Translate came up with “Put my hands dirty!” which didn’t sound very promising.

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Ingredients

  

• yeast coffee cake ** For the dough :
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/8 cup sugar (2 tbsp)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/4 tsps active dried yeast
• 1/2 cup milk warm
• 60 gm butter , at room temperature
• 1 egg
• meringue ** For the :
• 2 egg whites at room temperature
• a large pinch salt
• 1 1/4 tsps masala chai
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup cashewnuts roasted broken
• 1/4 cup cranberries
• 2 tbsps sugar granulated
• 1/2 cup chocolate semisweet chips
• milk A little for brushing over the dough before baking
• can milk butter butter In a saucepan , combine the and and heat over medium heat until warm and the is just melted . You do the kneading by hand , or with an electric mixer , but I used my food processor
• 3/4 cup flour sugar salt yeast flour yeast egg Combine of the , the , and in your food processor bowl . Gradually add the warm liquid to the / mixture , pulsing until well blended . Add the
• 2 1 cups flour yeast eggs flour floured floured and adding only as much extra flour With an electric mixer on low speed , gradually add the warm liquid to the / mixture , beating until well blended . Increase mixer speed to medium and beat minutes . Add the and and process for a couple of minutes . Add as much of the remaining as required to make a dough that holds together . Turn out onto a ed surface and knead the dough for 8 to 10 minutes until the dough is soft , smooth and elastic , keeping the work surface ed and adding only as much extra as needed
• meringue ** Once the dough has doubled , make the :
• t 30 1/4 cup egg whites egg whites salt vanilla sugar In a clean mixing bowl u2013 ideally a metal bowl so the adhere to the side (they slip on glass) and you don u2019 end up with liquid remaining in the bottom u2013 beat the with the , first on low speed for seconds , then increase the speed to high and continue beating until foamy and opaque . Add the then start adding the , a tablespoon at a time as you beat , until very stiff , glossy peaks form
• coffee cake ** Assembling the :
• 10 10 inchs floured meringue sugar cashewnuts cranberries chocolate meringue Punch down the dough . On a lightly surface , roll out the dough into a x square . Spread the evenly over the square up to about 1/2 " from the edges . Sprinkle the first , then the , the and lastly the chips evenly over the
• the one Pinch seal cookie seal seal. Otherwise, tuck the ends neatly underneath and seal Now , roll up the dough jellyroll style , from the side nearest to you . seam closed to . Very carefully transfer the filled log to the lined sheet , seam side down . Bring the ends of the log around and the ends together , forming a ring , tucking end into the other and pinching to . Otherwise, tuck the ends neatly underneath and well to form a log
• 1 inch coffee cake Using kitchen scissors make cuts along the outside edge at intervals . Make them as shallow or as deep as desired but don u2019 t be afraid to cut deep into the ring / log . Cover the with plastic wrap and allow it to rise again for 45 to 60 minutes
• 180 C coffee cake milk Brush the tops of the with , and bake at (350F) for about 25 to 30 minutes till risen and golden brown
• 350 coffee cake xb0 Preheat the oven to F (180xb0C). The dough should sound hollow when tapped . Remove from the oven and very gently loosen the from the paper with a large spatula . Cool completely on a rack
• coffee tea Slice and serve with or . (How else would one serve a cake?)
• cake sugar cocoa You may choose to dust the with powdered or powder before serving . These are best eaten fresh , the same day or the next day

Notes

I have to confess I was happy to see a yeasted bread (okay, coffee cake) for a change when this month’s challenge was revealed. If it has yeast, to me it’s bread, but this one has butter and eggs so that does make it cake-like like a brioche, but not as rich.

I have never seen a bread/ yeasted coffee cake with meringue inside it and that aspect was what I found interesting about this challenge. I had visions of an eggy mess inside the coffee cake but was pleasantly surprised to see a rather moist bread-like texture with no hint of egg about it.

I am not particularly fond of sweet filled yeasted breads but this one was well liked by everyone here. And the dough produces a sweet bread (yeasted cake) with a really good texture, and softness without the richness one would normally associate with dough of this sort. I will definitely be using this dough to make savoury filled breads.

You really ought to visit the other Daring Bakers some of who have made very unusual and beautifully shaped coffee cakes!

I would like to take this opportunity to mention that a small group of food bloggers have got together to raise some money through an auction to send to the Japanese Red Cross for their earthquake relief work. It would be nice if you could join us by bidding on one or more of the items on offer. Please help us help Japan. Thank you.